The Charge

Opening Statement

In 1991, George Lucas/Steven Spielberg protégé Joe Johnston
directed the retro superhero spectacle The Rocketeer. It should have been
a major blockbuster on the strength of its rousing action, art deco beauty, and
fine performances by Billy Campbell and Jennifer Connelly. Instead, it fizzled
and is now only fondly remembered by a small cadre of movie nerds such as
myself, who still think it's the bees knees.

Exactly 20 years later, Johnston delivered another gorgeous and entertaining
retro superhero movie. Captain America: The First Avenger is the keystone
to Marvel Studios' ambitious, franchise-spanning superhero team-up flick, The
Avengers, to be released in the summer of 2012. It is also easily the finest
of the movies in the Avengers line. Johnston's take on the superhero origin
story has a depth, breadth, and scope that puts the Iron Man movies,
The Incredible Hulk, and Thor to shame.

Facts of the Case

Hewing closely to its hero's comic book origin, Captain America: The First
Avenger begins (after a brief modern-day prologue) in March of 1942 as
90-pound weakling Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, The Losers) doggedly
attempts to enlist in the army to join the fight overseas, only to be repeatedly
classified 4F due to his asthma and other health issues. Rogers' determination
and decency come to the attention of Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci,
Julie and Julia) of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, who is working on a
super-soldier serum that might give the Allies a decisive advantage over Hitler.
Erskine's first test subject, Rogers is successfully transformed into Captain
America, a hulking fighting man who unabashedly wears the red, white, and blue.
The super-soldier program comes to an abrupt end, though, when Erskine is
murdered by a Nazi spy shortly after Rogers' transformation. Captain America is
turned into a propaganda tool, touring America to sell bonds for the war
effort.

While on a USO tour in Europe, Rogers steals the first opportunity to
demonstrate his great worth in battle. Eventually, Cap teams with Colonel
Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitive), Peggy Carter (Hayley
Atwell, The Duchess), weapons contractor Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper,
Mamma Mia!), childhood friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan, Black
Swan), and Dum Dum Doogan (Neal McDonough, Band of Brothers) and his
howling commandos to take on Johann Schmidt, a.k.a. the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving,
The Matrix). The head of Hydra, Hitler's occultic research and
development unit, Schmidt has discovered the tesseract cube, an enormously
powerful relic of Norse mythology through which he seeks to conquer the
world.

The Evidence

Despite the fact that Marvel Comics superheroes have flooded the silver
screen since the massive box office success of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man
nearly a decade ago, Captain America: The First Avenger is the first that
unflinchingly presents a true-blue hero, unmarred by self-doubt or moral
confusion. As with his DC Comics analog, Superman, Cap was always dismissed as a
superhero too virtuous for a successful feature film adaptation. Johnston and
company prove that old saw wrong by grounding Steve Rogers' decency in the
uncomplicated moral milieu of the Good War. Rogers is no boy scout, just a
Brooklyn kid uncompromising in his determination to give his full measure to the
war effort-he thinks it unjust that other men are required to put their lives on
the line while he is not. Johnston's bear-hug embrace of Cap's
character-defining moral compass makes Captain America: The First Avenger
the most ebulliently entertaining comic book flick since Richard Donner's
Superman (that's not to say that it's better than Christopher Nolan's
Batman flicks or Zack Snyder's Watchmen -- it is not -- just that it's
more unapologetically joyful).

As a comic book origin movie, Captain America: The First Avenger is
aggressively playful. Each of the movies in Marvel's Avenger series has mixed
action and comedy, but none so deftly as Captain America: The First
Avenger. With a gently subversive touch, Johnston gives us Cap in his
traditional costume, but in the context of a crass, propagandistic road show
featuring our hero kissing babies, glad-handing senators, and doing musical
numbers with dancing girls. It's a surprisingly funny sequence, rendered in
period-appropriate montage. Meanwhile, the flick's action frequently feels like
homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark (a movie on which Johnston was an art
director), what with its leather trench-coated fascists seeking powerful
religious relics with which to turn the tide of the war. Captain America: The
First Avenger also has the distinction of being the first Marvel Studios'
movie in memory to have a compelling and satisfying third act. While Iron
Man or Thor stumbled into let-down confrontations with disappointing
villains, and The Incredible Hulk devolved into a mess of rubbery CG,
Johnston's film delivers an epic battle aboard a sleek flying wing with some
gritty combat (including a Hydra soldier liquefied by a propeller blade), global
stakes, and an emotionally cathartic climax.

I was dubious about Marvel Studios' ambitious Avenger project (mostly
because the Avengers set up shoehorned into Iron Man 2 ruined that
flick). But Captain America: The First Avenger is a fun action-adventure
spectacle that so thoroughly sets the stage for The Avengers that I'm
actually looking forward to see Cap fight alongside Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk
next summer.

Disc One of this three-disc set is a standard 2D Blu-ray presentation. Disc
Two contains a 3D version. Disc Three delivers the film on DVD as well as a
downloadable digital copy. If you have 3D gear or think you might invest in it
in the future, you might as well grab this release just for the kicks. Just
don't expect to be wowed. It's evident in every frame of Captain America: The
First Avenger that Joe Johnston treated 3D as an afterthought, a gimmick he
had to futz around with in order to keep his bosses at Marvel Studios happy.
Nothing about the flick's visual design is improved by a 3D viewing
experience.

Regardless of the number of dimensions in play, the movie looks superb in
high definition. The 1080p/AVC transfer perfectly recreates Johnston's
intentionally muted, at times almost sepia, color palette, while delivering a
heap of gorgeous detail. Audio comes courtesy of a bombastic DTS-HD 7.1 surround
track. Crisp, detailed, and beautifully imaged, the mix offers clean dialogue
and superb sound effects.

The best of the relatively thin slate of extras is a fine commentary by
Johnston, director of photography Shelly Johnson, and editor Jeffrey Ford. The
disc also includes a half dozen decent making-of featurettes, and a teaser reel
for The Avengers. Marvel One Shot: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way
to Thor's Hammer (4:03) is a mildly humorous short film about S.H.I.E.L.D.
agent Coulson's brief encounter with a couple of armed robbers in a convenience
store. Finally, there's a 5-minute reel of deleted scenes (with optional
commentary by Johnston), and two trailers for the film.

Closing Statement

Captain America: The First Avenger is two solid hours of summertime
tent-pole fun. A steal for fans of the movie, this three-disc set is the perfect
way to watch it at home. The high definition transfers are gorgeous, and for
added value you get a standard definition version and a digital copy.